Summary/Glossary Film Art: An Introduction - Image analysis
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Course
Image analysis
Institution
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
Book
Film Art: An Introduction
Glossary of all the important terms in the book “Film Art” for the Image Analysis exam.
Summary/term list for all the important terms from the book 'Film Art' to study for the Image Analysis exam.
1 NARRATIVE
Narrative form: the overall patterning of a film.
Narrative style: the films use of cinematic techniques; mise-en-scene, cinematography,
sound, editing.
Narrative: a chain of events linked by cause and effect occurring in time and space. The
chronology of implicit and explicit events.
Narration: the presentation of the events. The moment-by-moment process that guides
viewers in building the story out of the plot.
Narrator: who is telling the story.
Auctorial narration: the story tells itself through cinematic means.
Diegetic narrator: one of the characters narrates the story.
Non-diegetic narrator: narrator outside of the story world, the voice-over.
External narrator: person outside the story world who is nevertheless inside the story.
Diegetic: all elements belonging to the story world of the film.
Non-diegetic: all elements outside of the story world.
Shown events: the events we see on screen.
Suggested events: the events that are inferred (= viewer concluded they exist) and
remain implicit.
Story: chain of explicit and implicit events in chronological order as we mentally
reconstruct them.
Plot: How the story is presented on screen. (doesn’t have to be in chronological order).
Everything visually and audibly present in the film.
Story duration: the elapsed time (= amount of time in between) of the events within
the story that the film explicitly presents.
Screen time: the amount of time that it takes to watch the film.
Motif: any significant repeated element that contributes to the overall form or theme of
the film.
Climax: aims to lift the viewer to a high degree of action.
Media res: the film opens in the midst of a series of actions that have already started.
Range of story information:
- Restricted story information: We do not know more than the characters.
- Unrestricted story information: We do know more than the characters. By
limiting range of knowledge, the film can create curiosity and surprise.
Depth of story information: how far into a character’s psychological states.
- Objective narration: information about what characters say and do. Observing
characters or situations from an external/outside perspective.
- Perceptual subjectivity: Access to the specific subjective perspective of a
character via a point-of-view shot or sound that the character hears (Internal
focalization shallow level).
- Mental subjectivity: access to the mind of a character. Part of their subjective
experience, like thoughts, fears, dreams and hallucinations. (internal focalization
super visual level).
, 2 MISE-EN-SCENE
Mise-en-scene: all elements that are in front of the camera to be filmed; setting, props,
décor, costumes, lighting.
Location and setting:
- Screen space
o 2D: It presents a flat array of colors and shapes; composition, color,
balance within the frame.
o Bilateral symmetry: The extreme type of balancing that is near-perfect
within the right and left halves.
o Unbalancing: can also create strong effects.
3D: Depth cues, volume, movement
Depth cues: the elements of the image that create the impression of
shapes that look like realistic spaces are provided by lighting, setting,
costumes, and staging.
- Shallow space: the screen is flat, there is not much depth. The mise-en-scene
suggests comparatively little depth, and the closest and most distant figures seem
only slightly separated.
- Deep space: A composition in which a significant distance seems to separate
figures. Makes use of all the different depth layers in the frame. How deep the
space is. Deep space is a matter of mise-en-scene, involving how the scene is
arranged.
- Overlap: a cue for suggesting represented depth in the film image by placing
objects partly in front of more distant ones.
Costuming and make-up: can have a great variety of specific functions in the film’s
overall form.
- Can play a causal role in the plot
- Can be used for their purely graphic qualities
- Can work as motifs
- Can aid narrative progression
Lighting: a marker for different realities that the film taps into, creates atmosphere.
- Highlight: is a patch of relative brightness on a surface.
- Shadow: allowing objects to have portions of darkness (called shading) or to cast
their shadows onto something else.
- Three-point lighting: conventional way with a key light (the primary source,
providing the brightest illumination and casting the strongest shadows) back light
and fill light (less intense illumination that “fills in,” softening or eliminating
shadows cast by the key light).
- High-key light: refers to an overall lighting design that uses fill light and
backlight to create relatively low contrast between brighter and darker areas.
- Low-key light: strong contrasts between dark and light portions of the shot.
Creates stronger contrasts and sharper, darker shadows. Is typical for film noirs.
- Soft light: creates a diffused illumination, no direct light, no contrast.
- Hard light: creates clearly defined shadows, crisp textures, and sharp edges.
- Quality: refers to the relative intensity of the illumination. (hard vs soft light)
- Direction:
o Frontal: can be recognized by its tendency to eliminate shadows.
o Backlighting: comes from behind the subject. When used with no other
sources of light, backlighting tends to create silhouettes.
o Underlighting: the light comes from below the subject, tends to distort
features.
o top lighting: comes from above the subject.
- Color: use of color filters.
Staging and performance: How they act.
- Frontality of staging: a character is facing the camera.
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